Republican operatives will make political hay out of the stories of black voters who waited in lines up to five hours for a presidential candidate who conceded before their votes were counted. Kerry's flip-flop on the importance of counting every vote gives Republicans an effective message to demobilize Democratic base voters: Remember Ohio.

At the same time, voters remember "Florida," which has become a metaphor for voter disenfranchisement, voting irregularities and unreliable voting machines.

After the initial excitement, it didn't take long for voters to lose trust in the new system, as they increasingly deemed DRE too complex, unreliable and insecure; the only thing worse than a confusing paper trail, it turned out, was no paper trail at all.

The bottom line is we have to ensure every vote is counted – and, counted properly. Citizens must have confidence in the integrity of their elections.

The Pew Research Center found there is a partisan and racial gap in voters' confidence their vote will be accurately counted. While 79 percent of Republicans have confidence their vote will be counted, only 45 percent of Democrats are sure. The percentage of black voters who express little or no confidence their vote will be counted has doubled since 2004, from 15 percent to 29 percent.

It doesn't take a computer scientist to know there is a correlation between voters' confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and voter turnout. The bottom line: If Democrats fail to address voters' distrust in the machinery of our democracy, they do so at their own peril.